Teshuva: Its Meaning and Laws – Rabbi Michael Avraham – Lesson 2

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look in the Frankel Maimonides; he probably brings this on that halakhic ruling. Chapter 2, halakhah 1—look in the index of the Frankel Maimonides, it’ll point you to that Sefat Emet. I remember there’s such a Sefat Emet, and there are other commentators too who want to argue that it’s possible to commit transgressions in the process of repentance. In order to complete the process of repentance, is it permitted to commit transgressions? Meaning, to enter situations that are forbidden under normal circumstances. “And this is what Solomon said: ‘Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.’” Precisely when you’re still in a state where you could also sin—it’s no great feat to return when you’re already old and in any case have no interest in doing it. “And if he repented only in his old age, at a time when he is unable to do what he used to do—even though it is not superior repentance, it is effective for him, and he is a penitent. Even if he sinned all his days and repented on the day of his death and died in his repentance, all his sins are forgiven, as it is said: ‘Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain’—that is the day of death. By implication, if he remembered his Creator and repented before he died, he is forgiven.” My claim, by the way, in general, is that chapter 2 of Maimonides is dealing with full repentance. Complete repentance. That’s what he says: what is complete repentance? I think that’s the point. In fact Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner writes in Pachad Yitzchak on Purim—he says there, he brings there, after all we sing and say: “A person is obligated to become intoxicated until he does not know the difference between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai.’” That’s from the Talmud. We sing it too, but it reminds me—there’s in Yoreh De’ah 262, I think, where he brings there that a person is more obligated in honoring his father than in honoring his grandfather. And the Shakh writes there—I think it’s the Shakh, and maybe Tivat Rivkah—that he refers to Rashi. Rashi on “and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac,” in the portion of Vayigash. So the Taz asks there: what do you mean, Rashi? That’s a midrash. Why are you bringing me Rashi as a source? There’s a midrash. Well, people know Rashi more than they know the midrash. Just like we sing “a person is obligated to become intoxicated”—that’s Talmud. But that’s how people know it. In any case, Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner asks: what’s the idea here? After all, it should be the opposite—you’re supposed to distinguish between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai,” not blur the difference between them, not equate them. So he explains that what the Mishnah says—the Mishnah in Yoma speaks about the two goats—it says that strictly speaking it’s not indispensable, but ideally they need to be equal in height, in weight, in value; meaning they need to be as identical as possible. He asks: why? Why do they need to be identical? What’s the point? So he says that the point is that when you cast lots to determine which goat goes to God and which goat goes to Azazel, you need to distinguish between them only in that sense: this one goes to God and this one goes to Azazel. And in order to sharpen that distinction, you need to blur all the other differences that are irrelevant: that one is more expensive, that one is fatter, that one is prettier. In value, in height, in weight, they need to be as identical as possible, so that the only difference between them is sharply defined. So that you won’t attribute the difference between them to side issues, to unimportant matters. So he says the same thing here: you need to blur the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai,” aside from the fact that this one is cursed and this one is blessed. And you should picture them in your mind as though they are identical—not that one is an Amalekite wicked man from birth and the other is righteous from the womb. On the contrary, it’s an educational mistake to present it that way. You need to describe them as identical twins, and then say: okay, but this one chose to be wicked and this one chose to be righteous. As he says: the deeper the comparison, the deeper the distinction.

[Speaker E] So when people draw them for children and all that, they should draw them the same, and everybody with a beard and so on.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe he even mentions that there, I don’t remember, in some children’s books where they always draw Esau as some wicked guy with a disgusting face. Yes, exactly. And Jacob as some kind of angel. That’s an educational mistake. Meaning, they should be drawn exactly the same. He says only that one chose good and the other chose evil. That’s the whole idea. The goats are of course some kind of simulation that we perform in order to illustrate the matter of choosing good or evil. The goats don’t choose—we cast lots. But the lot is a kind of parable for human choice. Look where you can end up. You can reach all the way into the Holy of Holies if you choose good, and you can end up all the way with the goat for Azazel there, in the matter of the goats and all of Nachmanides’ well-known comments.

[Speaker D] Either way they’re going to kill you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Either way, in the end we always die. The only question is just how we die. So therefore, basically, this thing comes to tell you—or illustrate for you—the issue of choice. And choice depends only on what you choose, not on the circumstances and not on how you look and not on your talents and not on anything around it. Blur all of that. In the end everything depends on the question of what you choose. And that’s the point. So the deeper—the point is that what matters is basically, yes, that’s what Maimonides says—you need to be in the same state, at the same age, in the same circumstances, everything the same. And what’s the difference? The previous time, when you were in exactly the same state, the same age, the same situation, you sinned; and now you’re in the same state, the same age, the same situation, and you don’t sin. Then it’s clear that what caused you not to sin was the repentance you did, and not fear, and not other circumstances, and not that the impulse was weaker, and not all kinds of side factors. Meaning, the more you blur the irrelevant differences, the more you sharpen the difference you need to focus on. And about that Maimonides writes there in halakhah 4, later in the chapter: “Among the ways of repentance is that the penitent should cry out constantly before God with weeping and supplication, and give charity according to his means, and distance himself greatly from the thing in which he sinned, and change his name, as if to say: I am someone else and not the same person who did those deeds; and change all his deeds for the good and to the straight path, and exile himself from his place, for exile atones for sin because it causes him to submit and be humble and lowly in spirit.” Meaning, basically the point is that you really need to become someone else. Now what does “someone else” mean? You have the same parents; obviously you’re the same person in the ordinary sense. It’s a metaphor. But you need to be different in the relevant sense. What’s the relevant sense? In what you choose. In the fact that you repented—that’s the point. Everything else is not important. In the fact that you repented, you are now different; you need to be different. Yes, for example, someone who lent with interest, so it’s written in the halakhic authorities that his repentance is that he should not lend with interest even to a gentile. Meaning, you need to distance yourself very far specifically at the point where you fell; that point you need to change. Okay, so basically the point is that this chapter, chapter 2 of Maimonides, is really speaking about great repentance, in which the person changes. Not a technical repentance in which you carry out some technical mechanism to correct a sin, but rather you change—meaning, something happens, you undergo some essential process. What happens in that repentance? There’s something to be said here: to say that a person changed is a very problematic statement. We’re very used to it, and it’s a very problematic statement. Because—well, I’m moving a bit to a philosophical or logical remark. I’ll present it perhaps through an example. Let’s say that—yes, I’ll start like in physics, I’ll start with a point donkey. Meaning, if there’s a person who has only one principle in his world. That’s it—a one-principle person. That principle is: maximum World to Come, minimum Gehenna. Meaning maximum reward, minimum punishment. Okay? That’s the principle that guides him. The man is scrupulous about minor commandments as about major ones, he gets up for vatikin every morning, he never stops learning for a moment, a righteous man, the foundation of the world—but all for maximum reward, minimum punishment. Now I’ve run this simulation several times already. I told people, say, that I am this person, and come try to persuade me to serve for its own sake.

[Speaker C] Why—why did you adopt that principle? What? Why did you adopt the principle of maximum reward? What caused you to adopt it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because it seems right to me. I want maximum reward and minimum punishment; I really don’t want to suffer, I want to enjoy—what can I do? Can you persuade me? Fine—serve for its own sake and then you’ll get more reward.

[Speaker G] Spiritual reward.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that really is spiritual reward. Basically I—I’m working for spiritual reward. Yes, you understand that you can’t, right? You can’t, because the only way—say if I’m a one-principle person, and if I had several principles you could show that this principle contradicts my other principles, that I made a mistake in calculation, right? But that’s why I started with the example of a one-principle person. In order to persuade a person, you have to assume the principles he accepts, right? And then try to bring him to some conclusions. But if you assume this principle that I accept—namely, that one serves for maximum reward and minimum punishment—how are you going to persuade me to serve for its own sake? After all, you need to use my principle in order to persuade me, not your conceptions. With your conceptions you won’t persuade me.

[Speaker C] Yes, but there’s always some kind of meta-principled system that caused you to adopt the principle; that is, why do you want maximum reward?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That was your previous remark; I’ll get to it—that’s a point.

[Speaker D] No, but why the assumption that persuasion is the only path to change? Meaning, a change of principles—maybe it comes through persuasion or through something else? Through what? Through something internal, through an experience, through some kind of encounter?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then it happens by itself. We’ll get to that in a moment.

[Speaker D] It doesn’t happen by itself; it happens from something.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can happen, not through an orderly cognitive process. Meaning—not, okay, that’s what I call “by itself”; I’ll come back to it in a moment. There’s some—this reminds me of a story about Adam HaKohen. There are a few amusing stories about Adam HaKohen, one of the militant maskilim, and they said about him that he wanted to repent on his deathbed only in order to refute the saying of the Sages that even the wicked, at the entrance to Gehenna, do not repent. And that’s roughly the same as persuading someone who works for reward to work for its own sake by telling him that if he works for its own sake he’ll get more reward. So you can’t. Why can’t you really persuade me? Because in order to address me you have to assume the system acceptable to me. You can’t come to me with the system acceptable to you, because then the whole discussion can’t even begin. You need to begin by anchoring yourself in my system and then go out from there and try to bring me to the desired conclusion. Yes? If I remember now something else—there’s the story of the turkey prince of Rabbi Nachman, right? We already talked about that once too, I don’t remember when. There are two difficulties in that story, and one resolves the other. If you know the story, right? Familiar? Everybody knows it? Familiar? No? So say so, okay, I’ll tell it briefly. The king’s son went mad, the master of the house went mad, climbed under the table, took off his clothes, and began pecking crumbs from the floor, and announced that he was a turkey. He was no longer a human being; he was a turkey, and therefore he didn’t need to wear clothes, and he ate grains from the floor. The king didn’t know what to do with him; no one managed to cure him until some wise man arrived and said: I’ll cure the boy. Fine, what does he do? He takes off his clothes, goes under the table, and starts picking up grains together with the king’s son under the table. The king’s son looks at him and says: tell me, what are you doing here? I’m a turkey, I want to eat some grains, I’m hungry. Right, fine, hello. After some time, as they become more comfortable with each other, he says to him: listen, the truth is what? The truth is that turkeys can also wear pants; nothing happens, right? It doesn’t deprive us of being turkeys. It’s possible. Right, really you can wear pants, why not? And then he says: and does a shirt disqualify and prevent it? No, a shirt is also possible; sitting on a chair, eating with knife and fork, and starting to behave like human beings—and he brought him back to his previous behavior, and they lived happily ever after. Now there are two difficulties in this story. The simple difficulty, of course, is about the ending. He wasn’t cured. Clearly that wasn’t a cure, right? This is what psychologists call behaviorist therapy. Meaning, he fixes the behavior, but in his psyche he remains sick. Do you see the connection to that one who works for reward? So he’ll work for its own sake because that’s how you get the most reward. Meaning, you’ll bring him to the right behavior, but you haven’t really fixed the basis. That’s one difficulty. The second difficulty, which caught my eye after I thought about it—is that clearly he understood that this is a human being. But if he understands that this thing is a human being, then he understands that he too is a human being. So why is he telling stories? After all, what bothered you there was: what is one born of woman doing among us, right? What is a human being doing there? This is turkey territory. Meaning, he understands that whoever looks like this and behaves like this is a human being, so he understands that about himself too. So basically the first question is that he wasn’t cured; the second question is that he was never sick. And these questions answer one another, because a person really is a complex creature. Meaning, a person who is truly sick to the root, who has really lost every point of health, you’ll never be able to cure him in your life. An illness that can be healed is only one in which there is some point inside where you still understand what is right.

[Speaker C] There you can build.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, exactly. Around it you build all kinds of things and theories and all sorts of matters like that, but that’s around it. Inside—if we manage to reach that point inside you, where you’re still healthy, then from there maybe it’ll be possible to rebuild you. Yes, basically the work of a psychologist is not to reprogram you. The psychologist helps you get out of the state you’re in—supposedly helps you. Usually it doesn’t happen, but he is supposed to help you get out of the state you’re in. But you will get out of there, not that he takes you out, drags you out by the hair, but rather he helps you. He helps you reach that point where suddenly you can latch onto something real, and then slowly rebuild. If there’s no such point, no psychologist will help; he would simply have to create you anew. A psychologist can’t create a person. He can only help you, perhaps—I say again, this is what they at least claim to do—help a person somehow expand the healthy point that still exists within him and remove the sick wrappings. Therefore, the fact that the person was not really sick—that’s true. He was sick, but he wasn’t sick all the way. Meaning, inside there was some healthy point. He basically understood that this is a human being, not a turkey. But he wanted to sin, or he doesn’t have the strength—that’s the parable—or he doesn’t have the strength for human modes of conduct, to do commandments or behave properly, so he builds himself a theory. And the theory is that he is a turkey. Who says not? Who knows, maybe I really am a turkey? Those skeptical questions—often they come up like that. Maybe I’m a turkey? Do you have proof that I’m not? There are turkeys with two legs too, so what, it’s not terrible. Maybe they all have two legs, I don’t know how many legs a turkey has, two or four. Two, probably, right? Never mind. In any case, yes—so who says not? Now he builds himself a theory.

[Speaker D] What? Too much… there are turkeys with two hands.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two hands? Never mind, but two—two limbs. In living creatures, limbs; I know that. In any case, the theory a person builds for himself—inside, he understands that it isn’t correct. But he can’t sin while standing in front of a mirror that shows him: listen, what are you doing here? What you’re doing isn’t right. So he blurs it. He builds himself some theory that hides himself from himself. He blurs it, he builds himself a theory that he’s a turkey. But deep down he understands that it isn’t true. Since a person is a complex creature, he manages to live inside the theory he built for himself. And I think—I assume you also know from your own experience—when we build ourselves some theory because it’s convenient for us to do something, and basically who says it isn’t right? And little by little we enter into it—until someone comes and bluntly confronts us with the fact that we’re talking nonsense, and that can suddenly wake us up and make us understand that we just built a theory here. Yes, I’m remembering something else now. A parenthesis within parentheses. I was once in Gush; I didn’t study anything. So the guys told me: listen, you serve a year and a half instead of three years in the army, because you committed yourself to study, so what you’re doing here isn’t right. I told them: who cares? I told them, look, the chief of staff cares about my studying not one bit. To the rosh yeshiva I don’t owe anything; I’m not serving in the army for him. So what’s the problem? There’s no problem; I mean, who’s harmed by it? Now I assume—I don’t remember if there was someone there, I don’t think there was someone who really put me in front of a mirror—but inside I understood that it was a weak theory. Fine, but I really argued with the guys in a totally—well in the end I left the yeshiva because apparently they did manage to persuade me that it wasn’t right. But somehow I lived inside that theory and slowly became convinced that actually it was completely logical. A stupid theory, with only one problem: that it was absolutely correct. Meaning, I’ve never met such a foolish theory in my life. Huh? Theoretical physics?

[Speaker G] Yes, yes.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I go back to the turkey prince: you build yourself some theory that you are a turkey because really you want to eat grains under the table. That’s really what you want. Now what does the wise man do? After all, inside you know that you’re not a turkey. Rather, what? You live, you imprison yourself inside your own theory because you want to achieve the practical results, to allow yourself to behave not as one really ought to behave. So what does he do? He gives you behaviorist treatment. Meaning, according to your own approach, he gets you to behave like a human being. He says: look, your theory—let’s go with your theory—but so what? So what, does that mean you can’t sit at the table and eat with knife and fork? Why not? What, is it forbidden for a turkey? And in truth I have nothing to answer him. I basically don’t want to do it; I have nothing to answer him. My theory doesn’t answer. That’s the wise man. He takes my theory on its own terms and works with me on my own terms and brings me to different practical results. Practical results that are basically correct behavior. That’s the behaviorist treatment. But why can behaviorism work in principle? Because after I reach the right result, I no longer have a reason to build the theory. Because the whole reason I built the theory was only in order to justify the behavior required by that theory. Now if someone took me and won’t give me the bonus that the theory I built gives me—meaning, he shows me that even that won’t save me—then it breaks on its own. Meaning, there’s no point anymore in holding onto that theory. So it’s clear to me that I give up the theory now. And therefore, in the end, he really was cured. Truly cured. Meaning, because once he no longer has any reason to justify that theory, after all he knows inside that it isn’t true. He built it in order to justify some—that’s Maimonides in the laws of divorce, right? Also in the matter of sacrifices, that sacrifices are initially—I don’t remember. “We coerce him until he says, ‘I want to.’” This mystical Maimonides, right? That you beat him because inside he really wants to serve God. It sounds like some kind of explanation that is very unlike Maimonides, this mystical explanation. There’s nothing mystical here at all; this is completely sound psychology. Nothing mystical, it’s utterly straightforward. And no excuses are needed here. It’s obvious that that’s how it is. Meaning, when you see, for example, those kinds of recalcitrant husbands who refuse to give a get—I had one like that, he became somewhat publicized, a student of mine in the kollel, he had a PhD in physics, he became known some time ago, the one who ran away. What? The one who ran away—well now he’s already come back, I don’t know exactly where he is now, in prison or something, I don’t know exactly. Quite a type. I also tried to speak with him, and his wife approached me. In short, I haven’t met many get-refusers, but I understand the phenomenon. I also spoke a bit with people there; I saw it once in a while, but with him I really encountered it. He is God-fearing and wants to serve God; he is committed to the commandments. He is seriously God-fearing. Meaning, he studied seriously; he was one of the most serious students I had. But here he was completely stuck. The religious court told him: listen, you have to let her go, you are making her miserable. There is no point; she won’t come back to you, you won’t achieve anything. Fine? Now he built himself a theory that what do you mean, she doesn’t deserve it, she just wants it, and I’ll force her and it’ll be very good for both of them. And everything will be wonderful. You can’t penetrate that. You can’t penetrate that. He built himself that theory, and he explains to himself that what do you mean, obviously it’s fine. To say that it’s not fine? It’s completely fine. Oh, the religious court tells him, the Jewish law tells him, everyone tells him—it changes nothing. You won’t persuade him. And we’re talking about someone who really is God-fearing, as far as I can judge, at least in all the other areas. Why? Because he built himself a theory because in the end he wanted to take revenge on her. He wanted to take revenge on her; he had such an impulse. Now you can’t just take revenge—it’s not proper behavior, it’s against Jewish law. So what do you do? You build a theory that this is the right thing. And that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, really wants in such a situation. And I’m talking about a get-refuser who is a religious person, meaning a person committed to the commandments.

[Speaker G] And he convinces himself of that?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. He convinces himself; he lives in it; he places himself inside that theory because, you know, he has such a strong urge for revenge that he already loses the point. Deep down he probably knows it isn’t right, but often in such a state he is fighting against himself too. And the theory is his way of fighting against himself. He fortifies himself within the theory, and basically the whole thing seems completely logical to him. True, inside I feel something problematic about it, but I’m a man of logic, he has a PhD in physics, meaning he’s a logician, so everything is very logical. You’ll never persuade him. So what do they tell him? Maimonides says to him: look, we’ll beat you until your soul departs, and you’ll say “I want to,” even though you won’t really mean it. Right? And then it’s a coerced get, because the woman is a married woman, and I will marry her off. And I am the religious court, right? I will marry her off even though she is a married woman and this is a coerced get.

[Speaker C] It sounds like a double error, an error upon an error. What? That he’s making a double mistake—on the one hand he built a false theory, and on top of that he makes another mistake in that he sort of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, he thinks it’s a coerced get and on the face of it he’s right. It will be a coerced get, because what? Because I’m beating him and he says “I want to.” He doesn’t really want to. But if he doesn’t really want to, it’s a coerced get. They tell him: correct, it’s a coerced get, but that won’t help you at all. You won’t achieve the results. I’ll marry her off, and she’ll have another partner, build a family, children, and yes, a coerced get, everything’s fine. Put the transgression on me; I’ll take it on myself. And I’ll beat you until you say “I want to.” And when you say “I want to,” I don’t care that at home you’ll scream that you don’t want to. I’ll marry her off. What happens in such a case? What happens is that the person understands that he didn’t achieve the result. After all, why did he build the theory? He built the theory in order to make her miserable. So that she won’t be able to marry. They tell him: it won’t work for you. I’ll beat you until she marries. The theory will evaporate. He’ll understand by himself that there’s no point in building this theory, because the whole reason you built the theory was so that it would allow you to do what your impulse really wants to do. If you won’t be able to achieve the result, then the theory will evaporate by itself. That’s the behaviorist cure of the turkey prince. And I think that’s exactly what Maimonides means there. And by the way it has a major practical implication. What happens, for example, with a person who is not committed to the commandments? A person who is not… an atheist. Doesn’t keep commandments, doesn’t recognize the commandments, doesn’t want to keep your Torah. No mysticism will help here. You can’t force him to give a get; that’s a coerced get. You can’t; it won’t help. Whether he says “I want to” or not, it changes nothing. And that’s the point. But if you understand there is something mystical here—

[Speaker G] That inside every Jew there is some kind of will… why? If he isn’t committed to the commandments, the religious court still creates a situation where he already… where the possibility of taking revenge on her has been destroyed for him?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He didn’t build a theory; he really wants to take revenge on her. He isn’t committed to the commandments.

[Speaker G] Okay, but now the religious court found a trick to prevent him from taking revenge?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a trick. You are permitting a married woman to the public—what do you mean, a trick? You are creating mamzerut. No, in the previous case I’m telling him it won’t help you at all, but in the end I am not permitting a married woman. She really is divorced. Because in the end he really wants it; the theory evaporated. But a person who is not committed to the commandments wants revenge, and that’s all. It’s not a theory; he’ll continue wanting revenge afterward too. So it won’t help if afterward I tell him, listen, it won’t help you in any way—it won’t evaporate. Because from his point of view it’s not a theory; it’s really what he wants. Only with a person committed to Jewish law, where you tell him: look, Jewish law says you’re forbidden to do this—and in principle he is committed to Jewish law—but what happens? The impulse builds theories for him: no, no, here all the judges are mistaken, the whole world is mistaken, only I am right. I know that in this case, in this situation, the Holy One, blessed be He, is pleased with what I’m doing. Everybody else is wrong. Ask any get-refuser and he’ll tell you that. That’s what I think—again, that’s the impression I get, at least. Okay? About that Maimonides says that if you beat him until he says “I want to,” you really have solved the problem. It’s not a game. But where, if you understand it as mysticism—that inside every Jew there is some inner will to do what the Holy One, blessed be He, says… that’s how people usually understand Maimonides. Then you could beat even an atheist. Because he is a Jew, and inside him there is some deep inner point—I don’t know, I don’t understand these things at all. But yes, that’s really what he wants, and therefore if he says “I want to,” it’s fine. Nonsense. That is not what Maimonides means; Maimonides means something completely real: a person who really is committed to Torah and commandments. A person who is not committed—it won’t help; you cannot coerce him to give a get. This process of coercion will not help.

[Speaker C] What, but there were already heretics in their time? There were secular people in their time too?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No… not real ones.

[Speaker D] And those are pathological cases that need to be killed, so if they’re already killing him—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then his wife is permitted anyway, so it’s not… yes, “they lower him down and do not raise him up.” The snakes will already take care of him.

[Speaker D] No, “they lower him down and do not raise him up” is only if he can’t do it openly; it says that if he can kill him openly then it’s more…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That he should actually kill him. Yes. In any case, we’ll take care of his wife’s being chained more radically. Why did I bring this example? Oh yes. Because what happens is that you basically can’t deal with a person except on his own terms. You need to take him on his own terms and tell him: okay, according to your own position you’re fine, and I’m taking you to a result you want to avoid, and then in the end the theory will evaporate. But I have to start on your own terms. But all this can be done only if deep down there is a point where he holds the correct theory. Except that around it, the impulses have built him some kind of substitute theory, and that I can try to dissolve, or break through in order to reach the real place and somehow dissolve the wrappings, yes, the garments. Garments. But where inside there is a problem, then nothing will help. Now I return to the process of repentance and serving for its own sake. Yes.

[Speaker D] Maybe it can also work in reverse. Meaning, maybe just as, as the Rabbi describes it, against the impulse a person comes to build himself a theory of sin—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Also—

[Speaker D] if, say, at his inner point he doesn’t believe in it, then by the same principle maybe one could say that someone whose inner point has no desire to do the commandments, or what we want to bring him to—if from some external pressure he comes to want to do the commandments, then from that he’ll come to build himself a theory that he believes in the commandments too.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that will be a fictitious theory, so how will that help me? Inside he doesn’t really want it.

[Speaker D] But what does “inside” mean? The question is to what level we want to go.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What are his true values? What does he really believe in? I’ll sharpen this in a moment.

[Speaker D] And maybe at some stage that too seeps all the way in?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t—meaning, so that’s the point I now want to talk about a bit. Look, when I bring these examples it’s so you’ll see that there is basically some logical problem when we talk about a person’s reversal, a reversal of a person’s values. Let’s put it this way—I’ll formulate it for you now. There is literature—not a lot—on what is called weakness of the will. It’s a popular topic in analytic philosophy. One of the well-known articles is by Donald Davidson, a fine American analytic philosopher. So one of the foundational articles on this subject is an article of his, and he basically presents the matter like this. He says, basically: first assumption, if a person thinks that something is the right thing to do, then that is probably also what he will want to do. Right? If that’s what is right, then that’s what he wants to do. Second assumption: if a person wants to do something, then absent other obstacles, that is also what he will actually do. Okay? Third assumption: there is such a thing as weakness of the will. Weakness of the will means that I did something I didn’t really want. In the religious context it’s called sin; in the context of dieting it’s called eating something fattening when in fact I didn’t want to do that, and afterward I immediately regret it. And when I regret it, what am I really saying to myself? I was weak. Basically I wanted not to eat, but my impulse overcame me and I ate. In prohibition, in dieting, in many things, in all kinds of—

[Speaker B] situations where we want to do something but don’t stand by it, or want not to do something and don’t stand by it and therefore do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what is called weakness of the will.

[Speaker B] Now Donald Davidson says that these three assumptions are not compatible with one another.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, if you adopt the first two assumptions, then the third one can’t be true. Because if what I think is right is what I want, and what I want is what I do, then how can there be weakness of the will? Weakness of the will means I do something I don’t think is right. Desire is an active thing. No one can desire continuously. We don’t desire continuously. At points when we don’t desire—at the very point when you did it, then at that point, at that second, I didn’t want to. Okay, so that means that what you did is what you wanted at that point. No, at that second I didn’t want to. So that means you didn’t want to. I don’t do only what I want; desire is an active thing.

[Speaker B] I don’t want all the time.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Sometimes you ate something—

[Speaker B] say, on a diet—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] you ate something fattening. Did you want to eat it?

[Speaker B] No, that’s not connected to desire; it’s foolishness, it’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] not connected to desire at all; it’s entirely on the biological level.

[Speaker B] What do you mean, on the biological level?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it’s on the—what, I have no control over it? I’m asking.

[Speaker B] Yes, if I have no control over it, then I’m coerced. At that moment it’s without control.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Without control? Then I’m coerced.

[Speaker B] A spirit of folly seized me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m coerced; then what am I repenting for?

[Speaker B] That’s already an excellent question, and that’s—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the other side of the same question.

[Speaker B] No, because I think that all the religious symbolic language of repentance can be translated very nicely into psychology.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying—then you’re saying there is no repentance really?

[Speaker B] No, I’m saying there is repentance, and it’s psychology.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Reprogramming. What psychology?

[Speaker B] I mean, I do—yes, I work on my consciousness so that I will look backward in perspective at what I did, and I will cope, and my future will look different in light of that. I’ll be able to improve.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re saying there is no such thing as a sin that is not coercion—is that what you’re claiming?

[Speaker B] I’m saying there is no such thing, yes, certainly. I think the Talmud says this: a person does not commit

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a transgression unless—

[Speaker B] a spirit of folly enters him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And a spirit of folly isn’t coercion? I think not. If a spirit of folly is coercion, then you don’t need to repent for anything.

[Speaker B] Of course you do. Coercion—I’m coerced. Because the repentance I do doesn’t fix anything except…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But for coercion you don’t need to—because a significant part of the halakhic model assumes the biology, even though my biology—

[Speaker B] pushes me to do something, I don’t do it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then I have control.

[Speaker B] No, I have split control.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then what continuity is there?

[Speaker B] At the point when I did it, the biology—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] took—

[Speaker B] the reins into its hands, I had—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] did I have control over it or not? I’m asking.

[Speaker B] I could have, if I had—I could have.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so I have control over it. Then why did I do it if I had control? Because I decided not to act, because that’s what I wanted.

[Speaker B] No, because at that point in time the layers in consciousness were very, very much on top. It seems obvious to me that in the structure of consciousness, desire is very, very high up relative to the biological drives. It is above them; it can resist them; it cannot desire them. Meaning that when I’m on a diet and fattening food attracts me, then that is something against which at most I can struggle.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Suppose I accept that—I don’t accept even that, but let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I do. You still have control, so fight. Didn’t fight? Then you decided not to fight. About that, repent.

[Speaker B] Or maybe I simply didn’t decide. Most people are not in a state of—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But do you have control or not? I’m asking again. One way or the other: if you don’t—

[Speaker B] have control then you’re coerced; if you do—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] have control then repentance—then that’s your decision. This is something that most people, most of the time, are not completely in control of. What does “not completely” mean? Could they have avoided it or not?

[Speaker B] They could have been in control, but they didn’t—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] activate the mechanism of control that they have.

[Speaker B] So their not activating the mechanism of control—is that itself a decision? No, that’s not a decision, it’s surrender—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to impulses. But who decided? There’s no such thing as surrender to impulses.

[Speaker B] Surrender is a decision to surrender. I think most of the things we do are biological; they are not conscious.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, if that’s so, then for everything we do we shouldn’t need repentance, because it’s all coercion. All sins are coercion. You can’t execute anyone, you can’t flog anyone, you can’t do anything to anyone, because it’s all coercion. The impulse dressed him. So why is “the impulse dressed him” exempt? What? Why is “the impulse dressed him” exempt? Excellent question. Okay, so again, you can say that you disagree with the halakhic conception, but that is not the halakhic conception. You are basically a determinist in a certain sense.

[Speaker B] In a certain sense I am a determinist.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, okay, so I assume the opposite premise in this biology. I assume a non-deterministic premise. But I’m saying, there really is a problem here, and the problem is that the concept of weakness of the will contains an internal contradiction. If this is what I wanted—if I didn’t want it, then why did I do it? After all, if I did it, then apparently that is what I wanted. So you’ll say: fine, I wanted to be healthy, but I also wanted to eat something tasty. Fine, so in practical bottom-line terms, the desire to eat something tasty was stronger than the desire to be healthy. So in practical bottom-line terms, what you did is what you wanted. You can’t escape that. If it hadn’t been your strongest desire, you wouldn’t have done it. So in the end, that is what you want. So what does it mean to change that? What does it mean to repent? After all, it really is what you wanted. Except that now you build differently. Now suddenly you want to be healthy more than you want to eat something tasty. Until, of course, the next tasty thing is in front of your eyes. But in the meantime, after you eat you always regret it, okay? You’re already full, you enjoyed it, the thing is no longer there, now you regret it. So what? So now you have a different scale of values. So that’s not repentance; it’s simply that then you had that scale of values and now you have a different scale of values.

[Speaker D] You didn’t change,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You didn’t change it; it changed on its own.

[Speaker D] It changed on its own, you didn’t change anything.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It just happened by itself. Before, I felt this way, and now I felt that way. More than that: even this change that happened now—after another moment, that tasty thing will come before me again, and it’ll be the same thing.

[Speaker D] If so, then you didn’t repent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fully, really, when at the moment that it’s about to…

[Speaker D] So that’s what I’m saying—so what does it mean to repent?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To repent means to change my basic set of values. And for me, values also include the desire to eat something tasty—I mean the set of basic desires. Values are only part of our desires and their hierarchy, what’s more important than what. Right? So if I sinned, then in the end something is flawed in my basic assumptions. Because if not, then what happened along the way? If something happened along the way because it malfunctioned, like I talked about there with Indy, then I’m under compulsion. Then it happened—it wasn’t my decision. If it was my decision, then it’s a product of the things I believe in. So there’s something wrong with my basic values. So what does it mean for me to change myself? Who is the one changing, and who is the one being changed? If I already want to change myself, then I’ve already changed, because I’m already in a state where I understand that the values aren’t right. So I’ve got nothing to change—I’m already there. So what happens is that this change happened on its own; I didn’t do it. To say that I change myself is a meaningless sentence. What does it mean to repent? What does it mean to change a set of values? There’s no such thing. It’s just—it’s inconceivable. When you think about it, when you try to give an orderly account of it, it’s simply inconceivable. Either it happens on its own or it doesn’t happen at all. Because if it happens in an orderly way, in an intentional way, in a way where I initiate a change in myself—the “I” that initiates isn’t the “I” that changes. After all, I’m playing here with two hats: I change myself. So I’m the one changing, and I’m also the one being changed.

[Speaker C] The “I” that changes is already there,

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because otherwise why would he want to change that set of values? He already believes in them—so then what is there to change? So I’m already there. More than that—not only am I already there, but how did it happen that I’m there? It happened by itself; it’s not that I changed myself, that I did the changing. Because if I changed, then I’ll go back and ask about that change too—how did it happen? There’s something terribly problematic here. In other words, repentance—essential repentance, which speaks about an inner reversal that a person makes in himself—is actually something bound up with a kind of logical paradox, something completely unintelligible. How can such a thing even be done? The truth is, I’m not entirely sure—I’m not entirely sure how good an answer I have to this—but maybe, maybe there’s something that can at least soften the difficulty a bit. I keep wavering about whether this answers the difficulty or doesn’t answer it; not long ago someone asked me this on the website. My claim is basically that beyond the set of values I choose, I also have to decide how much energy I invest in that choice. How much force I exert in order to realize my values. That is, many times I believe in the right values, but when there are obstacles, I don’t muster enough energy or enough strength to manage to overcome them, and therefore I fail. Now the responsibility is always my responsibility. My responsibility—I can always overcome. What does “always” mean? There are situations where I can’t overcome, but then I have no responsibility. That’s an impulse that can’t be conquered, or situations I have no control over. I’m talking about ordinary situations. In ordinary situations, my claim is that I simply chose not to choose. I chose not to choose, and therefore the responsibility is on me. But I didn’t choose to eat pork; rather, I chose not to choose, and as a result the urges that led me to eat pork succeeded in doing so. Now, not choosing is of course a spectrum. Not choosing strongly enough—that’s what I mean by not choosing. What’s the difference between this and the “I didn’t choose to choose” that I argued earlier? No, that’s what I’m saying, I’ll explain. I think I’ll tell you where my point of hesitation is. I think this solves the problem of weakness of will in this sense, because what’s my problem in weakness of will? If you ate pork, that’s a sign that that’s what you wanted, right? So if that’s what you wanted, then what are you repenting for? That’s what you want. And if you’ve already decided to repent, then you’ve already done it—you no longer want it. You don’t need to do anything. There’s something here that’s not under your control; there is no process of repentance that is an intentional process. My claim is not that. Rather, I truly did not want to eat pork. But on the other hand, I also didn’t want to invest energy in carrying out my choices. Maybe I’ll even say in an extreme way: I didn’t even know that in the end this would lead to my eating pork. I decided to enter this lax state, a state in which my urges would manage to overcome me because I’m not strong enough. That’s what I’m guilty of. In the end there’s always some guilt on my part, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a sin. But on the other hand, you can’t ask me: if you didn’t want to eat pork, then why did you eat it? After all, if you ate it, that’s a sign that that’s what you wanted. I don’t agree with that. In other words, it’s close to what you said earlier, but without removing responsibility from me. I do have responsibility, because basically I could have decided to struggle. Because if I couldn’t have decided to struggle, but was dragged into it, then there’s nothing for me to repent for—I was under compulsion. It’s like the evil inclination dressed him in it. But I’m saying the point—the difficulty of weakness of will, which says: if you didn’t want to eat pork, then why did you eat it? The answer is: I didn’t want to eat pork, but it’s true that I was weak enough in the sense of how much energy to invest in the struggle. If I had known that I would get to eating pork, maybe I even would have overcome it—but instead I hid that from myself, and so I didn’t invest enough energy, and that was my decision, and I’m responsible for it; that’s a sin, and that’s what one must repent for. But it’s not true that I ate pork because I wanted to eat pork. No—I already then did not want to eat pork. Now you can also add that there are things you can do not at the moment of temptation—that is, you can, I don’t know, go to some workshop, I don’t know, beforehand, study, do guided imagery, all kinds of things in order to… I think that’s part of the issue of how to build up the energy needed to overcome. Because in those workshops they won’t show me why it’s forbidden to eat pork, but in those workshops they’ll enable me—if I think it’s forbidden to eat pork—how to stand firm in that. No, I’m saying the very choice to go to a workshop or do such an action. Right, but that’s a choice to choose; it’s still on the level of choosing to choose. Yes, but it happens when you’re not—when you don’t have the actual urge right now for it, when you’re relatively balanced. So I’m saying that’s technical advice, but it’s still within the map I outlined. The technical advice only says: if you really want not to fail next time, but to have enough energy, work on it before the urge begins. Go to a rehab workshop, whatever. Fine—you’re just suggesting practical advice for how to do it. But still, consent is consent. And the consent is that I ate pork even though I really didn’t want to eat pork. My values are not to eat pork. On the other hand, I’m not under compulsion—this is the game I have to play; that is, I’m not under compulsion. I have responsibility for what I did, but what I did was not decide to eat pork, but rather decide not to exert enough energy to overcome the urge that led me to eat pork. And for that I’m responsible on the one hand, but on the other hand, yes—I did something I didn’t think was right to do, something I didn’t want to do. And is this Rabbi Dessler’s point of choice? It’s connected to Rabbi Dessler’s point of choice. Within the window Rabbi Dessler talks about, that mechanism exists there; below it and above it, it doesn’t exist. And then what happens, basically, is that the… maybe I’ll present this in a different way. Okay, let’s continue this next time, because I still need here more.